Pawan Ahluwalia, Managing Director, KJS Cement

The new entrant in the cement industry, KJS Cement talks to ICR about the marketing strategies of the company.

What kind of marketing strategies does the company adopt to market the KJS brand?

Our USP is quality which has turned our product into brand KJS and that is why we have an edge over other well established players in the Madhya Pradesh market. Within a span of eight months, we are planning to expand our markets. It is thanks to our marketing team, which has well qualified people, most of them MBAs and having good experience in the industry; they are well acquainted with the consumer and the market trend. The first thing we did while marketing our product was market research. We got to know that selling our brand directly to the consumers would help us. This is why our freight costs came down. So, for our company we lay a lot of stress on market research.

What is the medium of advertising that is preferred by you?

There are basically three types of advertisements which are preferred by the cement makers. One is wall painting, second is hoardings and the third, TV commercials. We have already put up our hoardings in the state of Madhya Pradesh; our commercial will air this month.

How much of your funds have you allocated for branding?

I think we have a very strong budget to spend on our publicity and advertising, back- to- back. This should be about 2 to 3 per cent of the total sales turnover; in terms of money, it should be about Rs 15 to 20 crore.

What was the basic thought process that goes while designing your logo?

We wanted to project Kamal Jeet Singh Ahluwalia, our chairman’s, name in the logo. Since he is one of the highest tax payers in India and a tycoon in the steel industry, we decided to put his initials in the logo, due to which people could connect to it.